The State of Special Education in Mississippi
Mississippi’s education system has consistently ranked at or near the bottom nationally due to chronic underfunding as well as systemic issues of poverty and racial injustice that are rooted in the legacy of chattel slavery and oppression. Mississippi’s special education system, which is meant to provide a Free and Appropriate Public Education (FAPE) to children with disabilities as mandated by federal law, suffers from even greater disparities. Children with disabilities in Mississippi, especially Black and Brown children, are subject to some of the worst educational outcomes, as they are denied the necessary services and accommodations to advance academically, socially and mentally as their nondisabled peers. And there is a strong lack of compliance enforcement of school districts in Mississippi to ensure that they meet their mandates under federal law so that children with disabilities are given every opportunity to succeed.
In the wake of these challenges, the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Mississippi Democracy: Education and Youth litigation team, as part of a statewide coalition of special education advocacy and civil rights organizations known as the Mississippi Special Education Coalition (MSEC) and in partnership with the Southern Education Foundation (SEF), is proud to release MSEC’s inaugural report on the state of special education in Mississippi titled, In Plain Sight: Special Education Outcomes and Challenges in Mississippi, to address systemic special education and school discipline issues in Mississippi on behalf of children and families. This report brings together families, advocates, lawyers and educators to provide an in-depth qualitative and quantitative assessment of the challenges and inequities in the special education system and how they adversely affect the educational rights of disabled children in Mississippi. This report also proposes recommendations for legal and regulatory reforms to empower vulnerable children and families and ameliorate the inequities in the special education system in Mississippi.
